This map released by U.S. Drought Monitor at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 11, 2017 shows no drought or dry conditions in Fairfield and New Haven counties. The only area that has any dry conditions is in central Connecticut. less

This map released by U.S. Drought Monitor at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 11, 2017 shows no drought or dry conditions in Fairfield and New Haven counties. The only area that has any dry conditions is in central ... more

Photo: U.S. Drought Monitor.

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This map released by U.S. Drought Monitor on Thursday, May 4, 2017 shows dry conditions in yellow and a moderate drought in tan.

This map released by U.S. Drought Monitor on Thursday, May 4, 2017 shows dry conditions in yellow and a moderate drought in tan.

Photo: /

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Drought officially ended at 8:30 a.m. Thursday

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This is the week when southern Connecticut’s drought ended.

If there is an “official” time when it ended in Fairfield and New Haven counties it was 8:30 a.m. Thursday, May 11, 2017 when U.S. Drought Monitor released its weekly report.

It’s the first time in more than a year that Fairfield and New Haven counties have no serious water worries

Now, more than 75 percent of Connecticut has no drought conditions. The only remaining area that has some lingering dry conditions is eastern Litchfield County and central Connecticut.

That will likely change if a forecasted nor’easter drops up to 3 inches of rain over the weekend.

The drought’s last “official” days came on Monday, when the Connecticut Interagency Drought Workgroup announced that it has ended the state’s first ever drought watch. Last October, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy ordered the drought watch after three years of below normal rainfall. Malloy asked that residents, businesses and local governments to voluntarily reduce their water use by around 15 percent in Fairfield and New Haven counties.

The end of the drought watch came after several months of beneficial rainfall. Since Jan. 1, Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford has seen 15.78 inches of rain - 10.59 inches that has fallen since March 1; that’s 1.26 inches above normal for that date.

This week, Aquarion also started to remove a temporary pipeline that was pumping millions of gallons of water a day from Bridgeport to points the Stamford/Greenwich area.

More than 2 inches of rain was measured last weekend at the city’s Laurel and North Stamford reservoirs, according to Peter Fazekas, a spokesman for Aquarion Water Co.

At the worst of the drought last fall, reservoir capacity in Greenwich was at 24 percent of capacity, and Stamford’s reservoirs were at 34 percent of capacity.

The drought was more severe than any since the 1960s. It stressed water supplies in Connecticut and other states for the 29 months, the result of higher than normal temperatures and a steady deficit in rainfall. Some private wells have dried up and water companies ordered restrictions.

Across the nation, there’s more good news on the drought front, or what’s left of it.

ClimateCentral.com reports that after years of intense, record-setting drought across the U.S., particularly in the Great Plains and California, the country is now experiencing its lowest level of drought in the 17 years since the U.S. Drought Monitor began its weekly updates.

Less than 5 percent of the U.S. was in some stage of drought as of May 4, compared to the 65 percent in September 2012.

“I have been an author of the U.S. Drought Monitor since 2005 and we have had very few instances where there was so little drought, and to see the changes we have in the last year, especially out West, it does astonish me,” Brian Fuchs, of the U.S. Drought Mitigation Center, told ClimateCentral.com